ContactGEM AM
"The Great East Midlands..."
GEM AM
GEM AM... Classic Gold, Gold
Chris Hughes became Programme Controller at Radio Trent in July 1980, then took on similar position at sister station Leicester Sound, then Radio Trent 945 in Derbyshire.
Upon the launch of GEM AM on 4th October 1988, he would be overseeing 76 hours of local programming and 55 news bulletins amongst them. In a final interview with John Shaw on Radio Trent's final 'Conversations' programme, when asked by John what the 'sudden commercial expansion of ILR was about', i.e. the end of simulcasting, Chris said that the 'Government said we could do it' In the previous three years, approximately six areas of the country trialled a split frequency format - Leicestershire carried Leicester Sound on FM and the Asian service Sabras on 1260kHz as part of the trial. A subsequent Government Green paper said it would be unreasonable to 'waste' spectrum space by simulcasting so stations could either have an FM or an AM service. Therefore to beat this new legislation, it was a case of 'use it or lose it' and so Trent (Midlands Radio plc) created GEM-AM, (Great East Midlands-AM) which turned out to be one of, if not the best UK GOLD station. It launched on 945, 999 & 1260 kHz, at 12:00noon by paying a possible homage to the offshore stations that had built a long standing reputation for GOLD radio - John Peters played The Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love'. With John's fondness for offshore radio, this could be nothing else.
GEM was designed to play 'records that people know and love, that they like singing along to in their bath, music they can shave by, music they can drive by, everything from Frank Sinatra to Peggy Lee, through the decades of rock and roll: the 50's & the emergence of Elvis Presley & Cliff Richard, into the sixties with The Beatles, all the best music there has ever been from Tamla Motown, through the seventies and right up to date with artists of broad melodic appeal.....personality led, by mature professionals...and local - part of the life of the cities served...' said Chris Hughes in his Trent interview. Interestingly, he also said that..'....if we ever lose sight of the localness, then we'll be sunk....I don't ever want to lose sight of the skills, ideas and personality of our presenters and if we lose sight of that, then again, we'll be sunk.....that is why we are so successful.....'
And so, GEM-AM became the great GOLD station for the three counties. In 1992, a decision was taken to remove GEM completely from the 1260 AM frequency and replace it with 24-hour Asian programming - effective from 14th September of that year. It was perhaps felt that Leicestershire would be covered quite adaquately by the other frequencies. No real damage done then....
Midlands Radio plc, also the home to BRMB, Beacon, Mercia & Xtra-AM, and Trent-FM 102.8 was purchased by a company called GWR in 1993 - this put a dread fear through everyone as the GWR company had already gained a reputation for taking over stations and wielding various sizes of axe upon doing so - networking their own Classic Gold service on AM from Swindon. GWR didn't dare touch GEM - at least not straightaway. Even in 1994, GEM continued live and local 24 hours a day much to the temporary relief of local interested parties.
But the cloud of networking hung heavy throughout that time and in 1997, a decision was taken to network Tony Lyman across the Classic Gold network encapsulating the Midlands and the Home Counties - GEM was sneaked onto the end of the Classic Gold name to form Classic Gold GEM. Once the rather clever covert methods of networking had been started, it could only go to it's full anticipated state. Today's extent is one of minimalistic localness - i.e. four hours weekdays 14:00-18:00, formerly, before his move to new regional station SAGA 106.6FM, presented by John Peters, who himself had been freelancing all over the place in between times. And, safety wins at all costs, with the usual replicated worn set of safe oldies feature with all the other greats cast into oblivion, probably never to be heard again.
Radio Authority ownership restrictions hit the intentions of GWR group in a way they didn't like - as they continued to buy up stations, they were told to offload stations - GWR retained FM stations and offloaded AM. Relieved, previously aggravated fans and listeners to the old GEM rejoiced. But there is some bad news for this good news. GWR sold Classic Gold to UBC, United Broadcasting - on the understanding that GWR can buy the stations back again when ownership rules are relaxed.
GEM is now 'Gold'.
Information amended from the excellent Aircheck UK webpage
GEM AM Jingles
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